Youth on Edge

“In spite of political despair, a possibility of change arises if young people's will to participate in rebuilding solidarity is taken seriously. The book brings hope to the table without turning a blind eye to unevenly distributed structural uncertainties and the simultaneous presence of different suggestions for how to repair fractures in the social fabric—from pressures to assimilate to cosmopolitanism.”

—Anna Lund, Professor of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden
"The material studied in this book is diverse and gives a nice sociological dimension to the question explored and in relation with youth and belonging in multicultural and global contexts. It proposes a nuanced account of youth and crisis in multicultural societies."
—Hervé Tchumkam,  Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and Professor of French and Postcolonial Studies, Southern Methodist University, USA

This book explores disrupted youth cohesion in France within thecontext of multiple ongoing global economic, migratory, social, political, and security-related crises. While these trends can be observed in numerous Western societies, France provides a unique case study of various anticosmopolitan and anti-Enlightenment movements shaping youth conditions and reconfiguring relationships between the individual, the group, and society. The authors undertook in-depth interviews with French young people between the ages of 18 to 30 years old to inquire into how they experience "vivre ensemble" (living together) in a time of rising economic inequalities and multicultural tensions. Through these findings, they invite decision-makers, politicians, educators, and parents to propose a renewed narrative of social cohesion for youth who are not disillusioned, but deeply on edge.